The Gold Standard  

The dessert – the Fed chairman
 The Gold Standard (TGS) does not believe that history repeats itself exactly, much less, economic history. So, TGS won’t bet on Japan’s deflationary outcome being repeated in the U.S. even though in many other respects, the US has taken many leaves out of Japan’s book.
That said, premature paeans are being [...]

Extra serving: the battle continues in Op-Eds
 It may be a digression but Gold Standard (TGS) must record here the profound distaste he felt when he first read the ‘triumphalist’ Chimerica piece by NF and a co-author. It appeared to have been written in the early part of 2007 but appeared in a journal in December [...]

Main course 2 – joint serving by both
What is interesting is that PK himself provides a possible angle.

The only thing that might drive up interest rates—and this is a real concern (emphasis mine) – is that people may grow dubious about the financial solvency of governments.

NF was quick to latch on to that:

Well, if [...]

Main Course 1 – served by Niall Ferguson
Here is where you can find the transcript of the panel discussion.
This is what NF said in that panel discussion:

There is a clear contradiction between these two policies, and we’re trying to have it both ways. You can’t be a monetarist and a Keynesian simultaneously—at least I can’t [...]

The appetizer – ‘Crowding out’
It all started with Krugman (PK) posting this on his blog. He sighs, expresses exasperation with Niall Ferguson’s ‘ignorance’ and alludes to some ‘dark age of macro-economics’. Strong stuff. Link here.
In fact, there is some history to this. PK, perhaps, was having this at the back of his mind when [...]

… www.baselinescenario.com. I do not have to write any foreword for these two links – one on ‘Banks tunnelling and the risk of inflation’ and the other on banks buying toxic assets from each other.
In fact, Simon Johnson does a very good job of showing why banks’ behaviour risks provoking inflation in the US.
Of course, [...]

I missed this one and caught it accidentally. The FT report says that Fed staffers have said that the economy needed a negative interest rate of -5.0%. Perhaps, it meant a negative real rate. One cannnot generate a negative nominal rate. One can generate a negative real rate with commensurate inflation.
Wonder if this marked the [...]

VoxEU.org has an interesting paper that looks at what happened in 1294 in England and France. The central character is one particular merchant society named Ricciardi of Lucca. The concluding paragraph as to how England and France dealt with the crisis and the consequences that flowed from them are interesting:
… deprived of access to credit, Edward [...]

Inflation vs. deflation debate between Allan Meltzer and Paul Krugman is a rather interesting and insightful one for the rest of us:
(1)  Inflation Nation by Alan Meltzer:
(2) Krugman’s response: History lesson for Alan Meltzer
 One quick thought that came to my mind on seeing Krugman’s post was that if only all things in economics and markets [...]

… the opening remarks by Merwyn King, while releasing the quarterly inflation report of the Bank of England, are clear and candid. Gives a good glimpse into the problems and prospects of economies in the process of reducing their debt. You can find it here. It puts all the talk of ‘Green Shoots’ in perspective.